Dark Lord Day!

This past weekend we took a short trip down to Munster, Indiana to partake in the world famous "Dark Lord Day" put on by Three Floyds Brewery ( http://www.threefloydspub.com/ ) once every year.

Essentially the "Dark Lord" is a HUGE imperial stout which imparts so many subtle flavors that it boggles the mind...seriously after one sip at the festival we all looked at each other and just said "wow" and agreed that it was difficult to even start describing what was going on with this jet black stout.

The actual event was what I would classify as just "ok", meaning that it was certainly an experience but after waiting in line (which ended up in the thousands of folks from as far as Japan) for 5 hours to get our bottles you were kinda left with the sense of "what now...". Well "what now" ended up being sampling just a few beers (a good cask bitter, and a Russion River brew), listening to a brief amount of heavy metal from a local band in the brewery wharehouse and jumping back on the road to Chicago. Granted the location is in Munster, IN and to be fair..well..there's not much going on down in Munster, but please keep in mind that I'm not faulting the event on the location but rather what was available at the fest....4 bottles of DL-good, 2 food stands and no access (well under a 2 hour wait) to the brewpub-bad.

Anyhow..the DL is a extremely chewy and robust stout and it's going to be very difficult to leave the remaining 2/4 that I have along for a year +

At $15 per bottle (22oz) and a limit of 6 per person you can bet we will be cellaring these bad boys for some time.

...also check ot the metal group that opened up at 11am....if this stuff does not get you drinking a beer called "Dark Lord" nothing will...

Chamomile Wheat Ale..

I've always been a big fan of Chamomile tea..so I suppose it was inevitable that I end up brewing a beer with this tasty, yet subtle, little flower...

Really straight forward brew here..an even mix of Belgian Pilsner malt and Wheat malt (5 lbs/5 lbs) and about 1/2 lbs of rice hulls to avoid the probable clogging of my mash tun had I not added them..

For hops I thought I would mix it up a little by using some Amarillo for flavoring, and a small mix of Magnum and Cascade for bittering

Note on the use of Cascade for bittering..if your savvy about the hop game right now you know this *should be considered a sin..using Cascade in this manor. Allow me to explain, I was using the last of my magnum (about 1/8 oz) for bittering and needed just a little bit more Alpha Acid to get my IBU's to where I wanted 'em...and knowing I would use the rest of the Cascade to dry hop..well there ya go :). Also please note that you will not see the cascade addition in the recipe below...I forgot.

Onward to the yeast..I really wanted to do something with a more clove/banana taste to go along with the chamomile and slightly fruity flavor put off by the Amarillo so I settled on White Labs Hefe yeast IV..which should (or "is") do the trick.

Chamomile was ala Trader Joes Chamomile Tea..which is delicious and actually manages to pull off a very present chamomile taste after using just one tea bag per cup o'tea. I had shopped around trying to find the "best" tea to use and I ran the gamete from loose chamomile flowers (whole foods), to their "yogi" tea..both of which were tasty..but on the same time extremely subtle and I needed some more chamomile (I need more cowbell!). Final addition was 12 tea bags of TJ's chamomile tea steeped at flame out and remaining through chilling to 68 degrees (about 20 minutes).

She's (just seems like you should call a chamomile wheat beer "she") has been in primary for a week and will remain there for one more at which time I will bottle.

..speaking of which I'm about to go into the brave new land of kegging...enough of this bottling bs :). Stay tuned for my conversion post, turning my Sanyo 4912 into a kegerator...

Cheers!

Oatmeal Stout AKA-Bumpaddle Oatmeal Stout

This will be a real quick post..essentially what I did is brewed my first Oatmeal Stout (Aka "Bumpaddle"), bottled my English Bitter ("Miracle Elixor") and pitched the Stout wort right onto the yeast cake in primary last Sunday (but I did do this on a massive hangover from hitting up the hopleaf the night prior night...so I've got that goin for me..which is nice).

You can see my tempory "3 tier" system to the right, also I would like to note that I'm a knucklehead and have figured out why my mashes have been getting stuck so frequently with the last few batches...I've been batch sparging (which I prefer) but I have also been opening up my drain valve all the way..which obviously (well now anyway) has been compacting the grain bed and not maintaining the inch or so of liquid I should have over the grain bed when sparging. Needless to say this time it went great by allowing 30 minutes to sparge.

This is the second time I have re-pitched onto an existing yeast cake, the first was with my Barley Wine (onto a American Ale yeast used for a pale ale) which worked out well. With this batch I am able to say it worked just as well, if not better.

Primary fermentation was pretty much wrapped up within 3 days, which still amazes me. I plan on sitting this guy down in Secondary for at least a few weeks as it did come in a little heavy (1.068OG-above style guidlines..border line "imperial stout") before bottling..and then an additional 3-4 weeks to bottle condition might be necessary.

So this was a pretty full brew day, not only did I bottle my English Bitter (which is amazingly well balanced I must say) but I also brewed up an Oatmeal Stout, and finished the morning off by dropping 2oz of American Oak chips into my Belgiam Wild ale, which has been in tertiary for 4 months and will continue to be there for at least another 8 months prior to bottling. To the right you will see a close up on this batch in tertiary close up, you can somewhat make out a chunk of oak floating in there...just thought it was kinda cool looking..

This weekend I plan on JUST bottling my Saison...well thats the plan anyway....I will say I do have the grain and hops on hand for a pretty kick ass all cascade APA..which of course is a hop that will likely not exist in 2009.

English Bitter-Ye Olde Time Miracle Elixir

Another "semi planned" brew session here. I find myself doing this more frequently nowdays..I will get a loose idea of what I want to brew, grow up an appropriate yet starter and crash it out in the fridge with the plan in mind to brew at some point within the following week.

Pic of Ye Olde Miracle Elixer to the right...directly in front of my Sanyo 4912 fridge...guess what thats going to turn into :)

And thats what I did here with the Ordinary Bitter (aka Ye Olde Time Miricle Elixir). It was a late Friday brewday which included 2 stuck sparges (yep I have forgotten my cardinal rule of no mashing without rice hulls) which I have found to be the most frustrating thing that can happen to me while brewing. On a side note my next hardware project will be a way to reinforce or apply a seal around the perimeter of my steel false bottom, or by opening up the diameter of my fittings round the drain valve. Anyhow...

This is basically Jamil Z's award winning recipe for his bitter and hopefully I can come close to that version (but I wont really have any other way of being able to tell if I do or not), the main intent of this batch is to get some homebrew back up on the shelfs here at home in a short time frame-I plan on bottling directly from primary in 1.5 weeks.

Grain:

-6 lbs Maris Oter

-.5 lbs Caramel 20L

-.35 lbs Special Roast

Hops: All US Kent Goldings-4.2% AA

-1oz U.S. Kent Goldings 65 minutes

-.75oz U.S. Kent Goldings 30 minutes

-.25oz U.S. Kent Goldings at flameout

Yeast: White Labs WLP002 English Ale Yeast

-Pitched 400ml slurry, decanted prior to addition.

Stats: 80 minute mash. Water to Grain Ratio 1.25 : 1 -Batch sparged
-154F at mash in -148F after mash-Sparge water temp 179

**Batch may be more fermentable than planned, after 2 stuck mashes.

-65 minute boil

04A. Bitter And English Pale Ale, Ordinary Bitter
All-grain

OG
1.042
FG
1.011
IBU
31
ABV
4.0 %
SRM
6

Saison...

Hands down one of my favorite beer styles to enjoy..and has been for some time now. I've been looking forward to brewing my own version of this Belgian/French Farmhouse ale for a long time now..and coming off of both an insanely busy work week and a very interesting culinary week-we went to Anthony Bourdains book talk and signing earlier in the week..which was a great experience-I was ready to get some brewing done!

This beer is loosely based on Ommegangs Hennipin (which by the way is both one of my favorite Breweries-Ommegang, and favorites of this style- this Saison is amazing), a little more complex in terms of malt bill and process than a Saison Dupont, which is said to be made of only 1 malt-Belgian Pilsner, but was not by any means a complicated beer to make.

Knowing that the malt bill is fairly straightforward (Belgian Pils, Belgian 2 row, cane, and Belgian candy sugar my focus was primarily on getting the wort down to the mid 60's F and very carefully control the fermentation temps..starting mid 60's and ramping up to as close to 90F I can around day 10 in primary..this should be much easier to accomplish in the cold (and snowy as of today) winter season of Chicago (as should all my temp issues) than it was all summer here..which was brutal and a true challenge to keep temps under 80 in most cases.

I will update as primary moves forward. Cheers!

Fermentables:

Grain:
-7 lbs Belgian Pilsner -
-2 lbs Belgian 2-row (it came uncrushed so I had to take the roller pin to it...)

Other:
-1lb Belgian clear candy sugar

-1 lb Cane sugar

*Sugar accounts for 18.2% of the fermentables.

Hops:
Bittering:
-2oz Czech Sladeck 7.8%AA-80 minutes
Flavor/Aroma

-.15 oz of Bitter orange peel

Yeast:
-Wyeast Belgian Saison, 400ml yeast slurry started for primary.

Stats:
80 minute mash. Water to Grain Ratio 1.25 : 1
-Batch sparged

-152F at mash in
-148F at sparge
-No Mash out

-85 minute boil

-Irish moss added at 5 minutes to flame out
-Final Volume 4.5 gallons

-SRM-5 *This is one point below the low end for style.

-IBUs-31
-Original Gravity: ??? You tell me..my hydrometer went tits up and started letting in water..but according to my tastybrew.com calculations we should be right around 1.070.

The Yet To Be Named Belgian/Flemmish/Idahoen/Chicago Sour Ale....

So this is my second brewing this weekend (first was my hardened Cider, seen below) and was also a batch that I have been looking forward to cranking out for a while now. It all started at my local homebrew store when I started discussing Flemmish Sour Reds and it was revealed to me that they had one smack pack of Wyeast Roeselare Ale Blend (a seasonal Brett and Lactic culture which saw a seasonal release earlier this year..in spring..so I cant believe I found it!) which was ordered but never picked up...so I picked it up :)

My goal was to do a soured beer, started in a glass primary for 1 month, then moved into a brand spanking new plastic bucket (food grade of course), and laid down on some French oak for a good long while (at least 6 months until bottling...and even then I'm not sure if I will). The gravity however would be higher than a standard Rodenback, or Dutchess De Bourgogne and would be loosely based on an existing homebrew recipe that I went over at the brew shop.

So after a started and failed attempt last week to brew this up (crashed out my 400ml starter in the fridge when I found that I would be sitting on it until this weekend) I was right back in the saddle this morning at 5:30am..thanks to Higgins the Wonder Pooch. So after taking her out, and cleaning up things that..well have no place being mentioned with soured beers. I was heating up my mash water and dumping grain into the ole mashtun.

Mash started at 7am, and was held for 90 minutes, target starting mash temp was 154F which I narrowly missed with 155F. Final mash temp was found at 149F..evidently I'm losing a bit too much head somewhere...but I'm not all too worried about it.

You know what had never happened to me while brewing previously? A stuck sparge that's what! Yes I was living the dream..brewing and never having any sort of sparge issues...well that definitely came to a screeching halt this morning...

So after trying every little maneuver I could muster with my mash paddle, then moving on to blowing into the vinyl tubing, I was about to put one to the mash tuns side and then finish it off in true Mortal Kombat style by screaming "GET OVER HERE" and then proceeding to chuck a butter knife attached to my fly fishing line at it I decided I should first attempt to move all of the contents out, and into a bucket.

Well after moving all contents I found that my vinyl tubing had come loose so nothing was moving from under the false bottom, I quickly reattached and proceed to move the grain and water back into the mash tun..

Did you see what I did there? I still feel like slapping myself.....

So..yes the tubing was disconnected BUT that should not halt all flow, what would halt all flow was if there a blockage somewhere. I realized that somewhat quickly after letting fly a string of vulgarity that likely had our neighbors thinking I have terets...and at that point all grain was back in the mash tun.

So..back we go-all grain back into the bucket, false bottom and all parts removed and rinsed (oh, and guess what? There was a blockage!), mash tun rinsed to ensure no grain was trapped under the false bottom when reassembled, grain goes back into mash tun, I go rinse the bucket as that is where I am collecting the wort and then I'm back in business!

With the slowest f'ing sparge I have ever seen..seriously it took an hour and then some..but eventually I was left with 5.75 gallons of wort..and a promise to myself that I would never brew again without using some rice hulls.

So to wrap an already long post up I ended up boiling for 90 minutes, cooled and pitched. The Roeselare is already churning away as the starter was in good shape when it was pitched, so I've got that going for me..which is nice.

Fermentables:

Grain:

-17lbs Belgian Pale Ale

-1lb Flaked Wheat (or "that grain that fucks up your sparge if you dont use rice hulls")

-1lb Belgian Biscuit

-1lb US 6 Row

-1/8lb Belgian Aromatic

-1/8lb Belgian Special B

Other:

-1lb Belgian Dark Sugar (hard, not liquid)

-1/2oz Bitter Orange Peel

-1/2oz Sweet Orange Peel

-1/3oz Juniper Berries (crushed just prior to addition)

Hops:

Bittering:

-2oz Czech Saaz 2.5%AA-90 minutes

-1/8oz Amarillo 8.2%AA-90 minutes (not traditional but only used for AA content)

Flavoring:

-No hops added-orange peels, juniper berries, and Dark Candy added-15 minutes

Aroma:

-None

Yeast:

-Wyeast 3763, Roesalare Blend

Stats:

90 minute mash. Water to Grain Ratio 1.2 : 1

-155F at mash in

-149F at mash out

-Sparged with 20qts @ 168F

-90 minute boil

-Final Volume 4.75 gallons

Original Gravity: 1.080

Bottling and labeling of a Barley Wine-Episode I

After racking over my pumpkin ale this morning I thought I would take the bottled barley wine (brewed back in August and bottled this past week) and wax the bottles (wax was ordered from Northern Brewer-www.northernbrewer.com).

The process was pretty simple, after giving these bottles a few days to start priming and pushing out any residual O2 as the fresh Wyeast 1056 got working (this is just my hang up, not necessary as far as I know) I took a can of Coke, cut it in half and submerged with about 1.4lb wax into an old pot..which by the way is now part of my brewing equipment according to the wife :) filled with approx 1.5 inches of water and boiled until the was melted.

From there I'm sure you can figure out what happened, I dipped and let the wax run down naturally. What you can see in the pic to the right is the standard 22oz bombers which I bottled the bulk of the b.wine in, and next to it is the Champagne bottle used (originally a Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu) and poured the remaining was over the top to really give it an unique look. This is the bottle that we will age for 5 years..now I've got a reason to look forward to turning 35..kick ass! In the background you can see my loyal brewing assistant kicking it in her crate wondering just why the hell the "male one" is sitting on a floor taking pictures of bottles.

Next up I'll be designing labels for this bad boy with my wife.

Spiced Punkin Ale-Brewed 10/14

Howdy! Well after a fairly long break from brewing which included the Chicago Marathon, a few trips out of town, a puppy been spayed, going to work.....well you get it..just life stuff. Which is no excuse to stop brewing for 1.5 months! Wont let it happen again as I'll be doing 3 batches in as many weeks (1 cider, 2 Belgium ales). And to warm up for this brewing activity last week I got our 2 bedroom Chicago apartment smelling of hops, malts, and pumpkin.

After trying various seasonal pumpkin ales (and a few lagers) over the years I decided that it would be fun to give my own a shot. This is an all grain batch which incorporated just 4 lbs of roasted pumpkin and a smidgen of spice to give it that pumpkin pie like aroma and taste.

The brew day started a bit late as I didn't get the mash water heated up until 8am, but I was able to have it into its primary fermenter by 2pm, which put me right under 6 hours..cant complain about that.

Pitched with Wyeast 1056 (American pale ale yeast) this ale took off extremely quickly, take a look at the flocculation going on here:

After 1 week in primary I have racked over to secondary and have found that the taste leaves something to be desired for, the spice is barely present and I do notice that it is a little hotter than I would like for this brew, a hint of hot alcohol at first tasting which is covering up the pumpkin pie like flavor I'm looking for, I feel I can likely explain this easily by pointing at my mash temp of 148 (153 at mash in), I missed my temp but could not bring it up so I just rolled with it, coupled with a 90 minute mash this batch was way too fermentable..

Hopefully this brew will be a little more well rounded when I bring it out of secondary this coming weekend for bottling, and if not I'll be willing to let it age for a few weeks before it goes into my "cellar" for next year and/or xmas time.

Fermentables:

Grain:
-10 lbs 2 Row
-.516 lbs Caramel 20L
-1 lbs Caramel 120L
-.10 lbs Belgium Biscuit

Other:
-1 lbs Brown Sugar
-1 can organic canned pumpkin
-3 lbs cubed pie pumpkin, roasted in 350 degree oven for 1.25 hours.

Hops:
Bittering: Start of 90 minute boil.
-1 oz German Tettnanger (4.6% AA)
-.25 oz Amarillo (8.6% AA) **added for a little additional bittering over the German T.)

Flavoring: 15 minutes to flame out.
-1oz German Tettnanger (2.7% AA)

Aroma: 5 minutes to flame out.
.25oz German Tettnanger (2.7% AA)

Spice/Herbs: Added at 5 minutes to flame out.
.5 tsp All Spice
.75 tsp freshly grated Cinnamon
.5 tsp Nutmeg
1 Vanilla Bean, scraped.

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056-American Pale Ale.

Other:
Irish Moss-added at 10 minutes to flame out.

Stats:
Mashed for 90 minutes
-154F at mash in.
-148F at mash out.
-Sparged with 3.75 gallons at 170F
-90 minute boil.
-Final volume: 4.5 gallons.

OG-1.060

Primary Fermentation notes:
-Temp Started at 68F and held for the first two days, temp gradually elevated to 76F at time of racking to secondary (10/21).
-Tasting of brew at racking to secondary, slight spice and pumpkin aroma/taste, slight hot alcohol bite.

Tasting Notes:
1 week in primary-harsh alcohol notes, little to no pumpkin or spice notes.

-After 1 week in Secondary (2 weeks total): Tastes really great! Slight alcohol harshness, but the additional spices really have come through as has the pumpkin taste-not too heavy but very nice. My hopes with this one are renewed, looking forward to tasting after its been in the bottle for a few weeks.

Barley Wine (yet to be named)-My first All Grain Batch!

Yet to be named Barley Wine, by this handsome devil !!!

(Grain/Hop bill at bottom)

My first all grain brew!! So, yes I was pretty pumped doing this, tome all of my experiences so far making first extract batches, then moving to extract/partial mash batches, and finally graduating to all grain batches has been very fulfilling and educational to say the least, and I have so much more to learn! After pulling out all of my grain (22 lbs of it!) And going over my recipe and process (mash schedule etc) one last time early Sunday morning I took an extra moment to reflect upon what I was about to do-take nothing but grain, fresh hops, yeast, and water then somehow turn all of that natural goodness into a barley wine, loving it! After prepping my water the night before (5.5 gallons) I was ready to go right out of the gates. I conducted a 90 minute mash in my new mashtun, including the false bottom supplies by Northern Brewer, moved onto a 90 minute boil which I was able to bring roughly 5.75 gallons down to 5 between using two pots, all the while adding ridiculous amounts of high IBU Simcoe hop pellets in to bring my up to my targeted IBU's and start off with my original gravity right on target-1.12..fantastic.

Another big improvement I made to my system this time around was the addition of a proper chilling coil (previously I had tried with 8 feet of copper tubing..which was a huge waste of time), by picking up 25 feet of the stuff and running cold water through it for one full hour-this brought me down to a pitching temp of 73 degrees.

The yeast strain I used was a basic American Ale (smack pack) yeast cake which had been used to ferment out a Hoppy Pale Ale which I threw together a few weeks back, this brew was bottled while the Barley Wine was being cooled and once cooled was pitched directly upon the yeast cake...this is all thanks to Teds recommendation a while back, much appreciated since this bad mother started fermenting within the hour..and was almost completely done within 2.5 days, which brought it down to 1.010...

So now this guy is sitting in primary, to be moved to secondary this weekend (that's 2 weeks in primary...and up to 8.5 months in secondary (that's April..when we will be moving from Chicago..I should name it in respect to this event..hmmmm). Then its to be bottled with the top waxed and stored for much much longer..

Also making a special appearance with this brew is our my assistant brewer-3.5 month old Higgins..the super pup and my beard, which I'm glad to say is now one full month old (in this pic it was 2.5 weeks old)...and when I place this sucker in secondary the beard also goes away..mostly for job security :)

Thanks for reading, and as always please leave comments, threats, donations, and or beer at your convenience.
Thanks!

Hop/Grain Bill & schedule..

Mash: 90 Minute-batch sparged with 2.5 gallons

Grains: 18 lbs UK 2 Row

1 lb Aromatic

1 lb Flaked Barley

1 lb Biscuit Malt

.50 lb Caramel Malt-120 SRM

1 lb Table Suger

Boil: 90 Minue-5.5 gallons

Hop Additions: 60 minute-Simcoe (11.9% AA)-2 oz of Pellets

30 Minute-Simcoe (11.9%)-1 oz of Pellets

20 Minute-Centennial 1.75 (9.5%)-1.75 oz Whole Hops

10 Minute-Centennial .25 oz Whole Hops

5 Minute-Amarillo .5oz pellets

Irish Moss at flame out

Brewing up a APA in preperation for a Barley Wine....

American RyeHop Pale Ale

Brewed-7/29 (Partial Mash)

Well I finally got myself back brewing again this past weekend after a brief hiatus (last brew was cooked up in May-Belgium Wit..which was an interesting brew to say the least). This beer actually was an afterthought when thinking up a recipe/process to brew my first Barley wine.

After consulting with fellow Brewer Ted (link to blog to the left) he advised that I either, begin a large yeast starter or (the better option obviously) brew a batch up and pitch directly on the yeast slurry, which is already in effect a large yeast population, or starter, that will be able to handle the task of fermenting a big beer such as a Barley Wine after chomping down all the fermentables in this RyeHop APA.

I prepped about 5 gallons of water the night before and began mashing at 8am for one hour at a mash temp of 147 degrees (target was 152, but I miscalculated the amount of heat I would lose to the mash tun and grain when putting in my 154 degree mash water), this will affect the fermentables and threw off my target OG (1.061) and gave me a OG of 1.051...yeah not good but definitely a learning experience.

After mash out and batch sparge with 170 degree water the boil was started after adding my 5lbs of DME (dry malt extract). Boil time was 60 minutes, cut down from the suggested 90 minute boil. I modified the boil time for one reason only, to cut down on the Alpha Acids from the 1.5oz (6.2 AA) of bittering hops added for the entire boil length. To explain a bit more-hops, and more specifically the Alpha Acids released after a violent boil are what preserves beer to an extent (see the history of IPA's-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_pale_ale), so the same acids that protect all the good stuff in beer from infection (including yeast cells-important in this case) are also what would encase the yeast cells in my slurry which I require to be "free", or not encased in Alpha Acids, to go nuts on this upcoming barley wine when I dump the wort on top of it.

Temperature control during fermentation has always been one of my primary challenges while fermenting the brew, and I plan on making (DIY'ing) a more permanent solution to this; however for the few days that this batch will be in primary fermentation my temp solution can be seen below, front and center of the AC unit...not environmentally friendly to say the least but we do need to keep the apartment livable during the day for the puppy so I'm not beating myself up too much for the time being. This batch will sit in primary for a few more days (7 total), then its off to secondary to age an additional 3 weeks before bottling I think.

Behold!!! The advanced temperature control system!!!!